Quid Pro Quo
by Pheo
Summary: GS Parody of Silence of the Lambs.


Summary: GS humor/parody of Silence of the Lambs. Yeah, I know.but couldn't we all use a laugh? Anyone looking for a bit of substance, it's not here! I simply fell in love with Mossley's recent piece, "Cardinality" (if you haven't read it, you should!) and the idea of Grissom having never seen the famous film gave me an absurd idea.  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own em. Won't ever.  
  
Spoilers: Yup.  
  
Quid Pro Quo By Pheo 1.30.2004  
  
Sara Sidle nervously bit her lip as she made her way down the cool corridor, her heels clicking against the cement pavement. As a young student at the Quantico FBI Student Training Facility, she was doing an errand for her boss in agreeing to interview an inmate at the local Criminal Scientists Insane facility. Toting only a shoulder bag carrying case files, she briefly wondered why Dr. Brass had sent her on this errand. She grew more wary as she glanced into each cell she passed.  
  
To her right, a lanky, youthful man with spiky, multi-colored hair danced around to music he alone could hear, carrying coffee cups in each hand. He stopped, staring openly at her. His lab coat flew behind him as he dashed toward the bars that separated them.  
  
"Marry me!" he croaked, sloshing coffee all over himself.  
  
Sara gaped at him, but couldn't help but grin. He looked like a nice enough guy. However, she knew too well that looks could be very deceiving in her line of work.  
  
On the left side of the coffee lab rat, a muscular man with smooth mahogany skin was shuffling cards in an expert manner, singing softly. He barely gave her a glance as she crept by his cell.  
  
"Whoooo are you, who who, who who?" she managed to hear as she passed.  
  
Shaking her head, she looked into the next cell. An obvious ex-cowboy sporting brown hair and an impish grin romped around the room, riding a broken broomstick.  
  
"Yeeeeeehaw!" He jumped atop his bead, making the springs groan under his weight. "Ride 'em home, lil dogies!" He slapped at his thighs and jumped two more times before his bed actually gave in on him and he lay in the center of the collapsed mess, dust poofing up around his head.  
  
This time Sara couldn't help but laugh. The man looked ridiculous.  
  
"What are you laughing at?" a voice hissed at her. She jumped and turned to look at the other side of the block, where a messy blond woman grasped at her bars tightly. The woman was dressed in a scanty, shimmery green gown and her hair fell into her face. She bared her teeth at Sara.  
  
"I'm a single mom you know I was a dancer I wore nothing but skin I could dance laps around you my daddy is a killer I didn't know he was my daddy but he was and he killed a girl I'm a single mom my husband was abusive he did drugs you know," she rattled on, her voice rising as she continued. "He was a deadbeat dad and he got killed how bout that he's dead I did coke too you know what the hell are you looking at!"  
  
Sara stood and watched, dumbstruck, as the woman proceeded to hiss at her, twirl around while tossing her hair, and pole dance with the bars.  
  
She quickly walked past the rest of the cells, eager to get this job over with.  
  
These people were creeping her out.  
  
At the last cell, there was a chair placed outside for her to sit in. There was protective glass around the cell, but not for visitors; the inmate was emotion-intimacy-people-youth-relationship-brunette phobic, and in order to keep him under the delusion that he would never physically come into contact with any of these things, they had to keep the glass up at all times.  
  
There were small holes in order to slip him food and necessities, but other than that, no one ventured to stick their hands into the slots, for the mad scientist behind the glass was known to do horrible things, evil things, that could make one's mind go numb, such as drop double entendres at the worst possible moments, quote dead people, or even sing Pink Floyd songs.  
  
She took a deep breath and stepped in front of the glass.  
  
He stood, as if he had been awaiting her arrival. He was trim and healthy, with a headful of graying curls. He peered over his glasses at her.  
  
So this was the infamous "Gruesome Grissom." She felt an immediate pull toward him, as if he had been a teacher and she had been a student at one of his seminars and they had a fiery fling, or perhaps as if he had been her supervisor and they worked closely together, occasionally dropping subtle and not-so-subtle innuendoes at each other's feet.  
  
"Can I help you?" His voice cracked a bit from its lack of use.  
  
"Good evening, Dr. Grissom. I'm Sara Sidle from the FBI. May I speak with you?"  
  
She presented her credentials up in front of the glass. He recoiled in horror, spewing out, "Farther away, please!"  
  
She stepped back a few inches.  
  
"Farther!"  
  
She sighed and backed away again, and again, until she finally tripped over her chair. She stumbled into it and he nodded, indicating that she was far enough away.  
  
He paced in front of her, occasionally taking off his glasses and putting them back on. "Catherine, Crazy Catherine in the next cell, said something to you. What was it that she said?"  
  
She cocked her head at him, shrugging. "Well, in short, that she was a single mom, coke addict, dancer, and a victim of male abuse."  
  
He nodded, satisfied. "I myself am not."  
  
She continued to stare at him. This was the renowned scientist?  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You live in an area with many beetles, mostly of the dung variety. Houseflies are abundant, perhaps in your garbage collection area, as well as millipedes."  
  
She stared at him quizzically. Was this guy for real?  
  
"You know what you look like to me with your nice sweater and your cheap sunglasses?"  
  
Her mouth opened. "I beg your--"  
  
"You look like a physicist! An incorrigible mathematician, stumbling your way through Harvard, trying to do anything to leave, thinking of getting anywhere, getting out, getting all the way to the F.B.I." He smirked at her, raising an eyebrow as if he had reveled something earth shattering.  
  
"You see a lot, Doctor," she replied uneasily, raising her own eyebrows at him. "But are you strong enough to look into my investigation?"  
  
"No." His tone was flat, as if she'd asked him to dinner  
  
"Why not? Let me interview you. Let's see what happens."  
  
He opened his mouth, then closed it.  
  
She took that as a yes.  
  
"Here is the case file," she said, digging it out of her shoulder bag. She handed it over to him through the food slot, her fingers slightly brushing his.  
  
He jumped, spilling the file all over the floor. "I need you! You certainly know how to light up a room! You should be on paid leave! You don't crunch evidence to fit a theory! Since I met you! We were distracted by what we were looking for! What, do you tape everything I say? I have you! I couldn't do it!"  
  
His outburst did not shock her; she had heard of "Gruesome Grissom" and his famous yo-yo tirade routine. It still surprised her a little, though, and she backed away.  
  
He took off his glasses, put them back on, and took them off, put them back on. He continued to do this for a few moments. Then, he abruptly turned toward her as if nothing had happened and asked for the case file.  
  
"It's all over your floor," she replied.  
  
He nodded, as if it were perfectly sensible that her case file lay all over his cell floor, and he bent to pick it up. He glanced up at her before licking his finger and flipping through the file.  
  
"Your killer breeds insects in his home," he murmured after looking the file over. "Anything else you want to know, you'll have to make an even exchange of information with me."  
  
She raised her eyebrows in question.  
  
"Quid pro quo," he clarified.  
  
"What are you looking at?" Crazy Catherine suddenly screamed.  
  
Sara's eyes never left his face. "Fine. What do you want to know?"  
  
Grissom pursed his lips. "Tell me all you know about blood spatter analysis."  
  
She gave an inward sigh  
  
this guy is whack  
  
and proceeded to tell him all she knew for the next twenty minutes.  
  
He nodded when she was finished, seemingly satisfied. He said, "Ant farms. Your killer has ant farms."  
  
She let out a breath she'd been holding. "Ant farms? I talk for twenty minutes and all you have to say is ant farms?"  
  
He shrugged. "Quid pro quo."  
  
She shook her head. "No, uh uh, no way. You give me more than ant farms!"  
  
He looked at her, baffled. "That's it."  
  
"That's it?" she demanded. "That's all you know? You're supposed to be a famous scientist!"  
  
He simply kept staring at her.  
  
She tilted her head. "Hello! Are you hard of hearing or something, Dr. Grissom? Got a case of otosclerosis or something?"  
  
"Actually--"  
  
"Are you getting old? Insecure?"  
  
"Now that you mention it--"  
  
"Did you sleep with a dominatrix and it's making you feel guilty?"  
  
"Well--"  
  
"What is it? What is your problem?" She was getting furious, especially with his interruptions.  
  
He put his hand over his head, obviously getting his yearly migraine. "I don't know what to do about this," he finally said.  
  
"I do," she huffed. "And by the time you figure it out, it could be too late."  
  
She made to leave, but remembered her case file. "My file?"  
  
He reached out to hand it to her, but this time when his hand brushed hers, he locked it around her wrist lightly.  
  
She smiled at him. "Do you eat liver?" she asked sweetly.  
  
He smiled back. "Only with census takers."  
  
Down the hall, Crazy Catherine shrieked, "I'm a single mom don't you understand I blew up the lab I made a guy commit murder I used to be a stripper dammit somebody look at me!"  
  
*end A/N: I know, I know. but I needed a laugh! At the end it seemed a little Punch Drunk Love-y, but that's okay, it's fiction. BTW, thank you for all the kind reviews lately! I usually don't write much, but I'm studying in a foreign country for the semester, so I write when I feel lonely or sad or tired.which is frequently! I have a few more ideas up my sleeve, maybe another longish one, but my classes started and I'm swamped now, so we'll see what happens. 


End file.
